


Three Part Harmony

by kinetikatrue



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Fuck City, Tales of the City Series - Armistead Maupin
Genre: Multi, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawna decides to find out the truth about polyamory, the strange and unusual practice of maintaining multiple loving (and possibly sexual) relationships at once - and finds something she had never known to think she could want along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Part Harmony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philipa Moss](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Philipa+Moss).



_Grrrl on the Loose: Sluts of the World, Unite! - February 2, 2009_

The year before last I moved to New York City from San Francisco. Almost a year later, I mailed my absentee ballot back home and made my preferences known regarding the outcome of this historic election. A month after that, I watched as the nation gave me hope for the future - and the citizens of California proceeded to stomp all over it. About a month later, I decided to pick myself up and do something about that - and so the project I chronicle here for you today was born. 

No, I didn't decide to get the low-down on people who want to marry their pets (been there, done that). Or their sisters or brothers (do you think they're talking?). Or their cars (Dean Winchester, here's looking at you!). Or the fictional character of their choice (repeat after me: your imaginary friend **is not real** ). 

I decided to find out the truth about polyamory. That's right: the strange and unusual practice of maintaining multiple loving (and possibly sexual) relationships at once. And not getting called an adulterer. Or a cheat. Or a playa. 

You might get called a slut, but they'd mean it as the highest of compliments. 

My good friend Brian was freaking out. He'd just gotten off the phone with his daughter, Shawna, and she'd dropped a bit of a bombshell: she was bringing her significant others home for a visit. It was the plural that was doing Brian in; he didn't think things worked that way. But, then, they mostly hadn't back in our day. 

Oh, sure, my husband, Ben, goes down to the baths every now and then to have himself a bit of a change of pace, but that's all it is; he wouldn't want to get seriously involved with two older guys - even if I would let him. He loves me, Michael Tolliver. 

Brian let his cell phone come to rest on the end table with a clunk. Then he finally got it together enough to focus on me; his expression couldn't be called anything but plaintive. 

His tone when he spoke wasn't any less so, "I thought I was prepared for everything. I'd be cool if she brought home a boy. Or a girl. Or a trans-girl. Or a trans-boy. Or if she never settled down at all." 

I nodded and handed him the doobie I keep in a jar on the mantle for just this sort of emergency, "I can't imagine making two relationships work at the same time . . . even if I thought it was possible that I could find another guy I wanted in my life as much as Ben." 

He nodded, but he was trying to get a light out of his lighter and his hands were clumsy with emotion compounded by those rigors of age neither of us like to think about. So I took it from him, flicked it to life, let the flame burn for a moment before touching it to the end of the doobie. 

He said, "Thanks," and took a good, long, draw off it before passing it over. 

I settled myself on the coffee table and took a neatly measured toke of my own, held the smoke in for a moment, exhaled on a trickle, then passed the doobie back to Brian. I was certainly planning on letting him do the bulk of the smoking, but it wouldn't have been friendly to refuse to partake entirely. Besides which, I didn't want to. 

After that, we sat in silence, Brian doing most of the smoking, until a song wormed its way up out of memory and I giggled and found myself singing. 

Brian snorted, "Shit, I haven't heard that since-." 

"Telegraph Hill. I know." We both smiled, weed-mellowed, and I reached out and squeezed his hand. And he smiled again, rueful. 

We were still sitting like that when Ben got in from work. He laughed fondly at us, two old hippies, not quite sure what to make of some of the things this modern world has decided to come up with. 

_You know the disclosure drill: click the link if you want the boiler-plate, but I promise - the next bit's funny! I'm taking my boyfriend and my girlfriend home to meet my dad next month. Go ahead, laugh. `Cos did I see that one coming? Well, come on everybody and answer along with me: no, I did not! I was happy with my play parties and my hook-ups and my international network of really excellent friends. I certainly wasn't looking for anything resembling a stable, long-term relationship - much less two!_

"Mouse?" That was Shawna, looking for reassurance, courtesy of her cell phone and mine, direct from an NYC coffee shop to my very own garden. 

"Yeah?" I continued pulling dead leaves off of the plants growing in raised boxes. It was soothing. 

"Is dad freaking out too bad?" And that was Shawna for you, worried more him than for herself. 

"Not _too_ bad, not about you. More, just, y'know, about doing meet-the-parents in general." Which was true now, even if it hadn't always been. Really, neither of us had known what to think when we first heard. Well, aside from that we _were_ glad for her, glad that she had found love. 

"Oh." She sounded younger than I'd heard from her since we thought Anna was dying. 

I kept it light, said, "I think he'd gotten used to the idea of not needing to do it anytime soon." 

And she laughed at that, like I'd hoped she would, though it came out slightly rueful, "Yeah. Me too." 

"You never did do anything by halves." And I smiled, remembering a dozen dozen times this had been true. 

There was silence down the line (imaginary much of the time these days, certainly, but who wants to say `down the signal'? Not me), perhaps Shawna was remembering too. 

Then she spoke and her voice was full of wonder. "I can't imagine only having half of them. I can't even remember why I thought going out with just one of them was a good idea. I - maybe I thought Matt wasn't interested? That seems so dumb, now." 

"It always does, later. But the cliche's true: that was then; this is now." 

_I went to my first event sponsored by the poly community the week after I met M & A. I'd done my homework, both online and off-, so I figured I had the etiquette down as well as one could without trying it out in person. But it turned out not to matter. Sure, I flirted, talked, listened, but I didn't go home with anybody at the end of the night. I was looking forward to my date with A. Good for my journalistic integrity, not so much for my desire to get other people to provide my orgasms as often as possible._

Shawna, still a San Franciscan down to her bones, had shepherded her merry band through the SF transit system without undue incident. They'd deposited their luggage in a charming Telegraph Hill B&B and then met up with Brian, Ben and I for dinner. We'd been shown to a corner booth, served drinks, left with our menus. 

The booth was plush and more than roomy enough to seat a party larger than our six, adults on one side, kids on the other - for relative values of `adult' and `kid'. Andi, it turned out, was not so much younger than Ben, who had the seat to my left. Brian had claimed the seat to my right, the better to snag the check when it finally came. He was going to be a good parent tonight if it killed him. 

Shawna sat flanked by Matt and Andi - and the lot of them were telling their meet-cute in three-part harmony. Amazingly enough, it hadn't involved sex - so far. But, then, we'd only had the friends-since-high-school-move-to-the-big-city bit. 

Matt had paused to take a pull from his pint, but he continued, "I was covering for a friend at a place in Chelsea one evening." 

"And I was hanging out there with him, keeping him company - it wasn't exactly either of ours scene," Andi pushed a strand of auburn hair back behind her ear and her shirt-cuff slid up, revealing the wrist-end of a sleeve tattoo. Beautiful work, from what I could tell, but, well - quite. 

Shawna smiled and added, "And then I came in - I felt like I knew what the death of a thousand pricks felt like: a whole day of dealing with publishing minutiae. And I just walked up to the bar and said `I'll have what she's having.'" 

Andi did her part and chimed in with, "I snorted - I was drinking cranberry-and-seltzer with a twist of lime." She was now, too. I chuckled and Brian snorted in unconscious echo, which made Ben grin. 

Matt slid his arm around Shawna then, amused and easy, "But I just grabbed the seltzer dispenser-" 

Shawna gave him a look that promised retribution, but made no move to get free, "And I laughed and said, `No, really.'" 

"And then I explained and Matt made her a vodka cranberry." 

"And I ended up sitting at the bar and talking with them all evening." 

"Shawna and I went on a date a week later - dinner at Zen Palate - but apparently I talk about Matt more than, well, normal. Ha." Andi looked ironically amused, albeit unsurprised, at this. 

"When we went our separate ways at the end of the evening, I suggested we do something with Matt next time - I was planning to play relationship counselor." Brian and I shared a smile - it was Shawna to a `T'. 

"But we turned the tables on her - when she got through explaining how it was ok to want to be with all your friends, we explained right back at her that we'd both been attracted to her from the start. Sure, Andi'd won the right to make it obvious, but that didn't mean I'd stopped liking her just like that." 

"I tried to do things right, have a conversation about ground-rules right from the start, but Andi kissed me mid-speech, which shut me up good after a moment. And when she pulled back she looked over at Matt and Matt was already looking at her." She paused to dramatic effect, "And because I _am_ a thoughtful daughter, I won't tell you what happened next." 

"We did have the conversation. Later. Much, much later," Andi informed us, looking positively wicked. 

Ben smiled fondly at Brian and I, "Aww. They're keeping it PG." 

_It isn't actually all about sex. It's about allowing yourself to truly feel everything you've ever wanted to, but been afraid to allow yourself to take a chance on. The sex is incidental - but awesome._

Now, if you're thinking to yourself `gosh, that sounds hard', well you're on the right track. Polyamory done right **is not necessarily easy.** It can be time-consuming. And difficult. And full of enough fiddly bits and scheduling to make you doubly glad for your Blackberry. But it can also be sublime. And mind-blowing. And so amazingly fulfilling I don't know why I didn't try it before. 

Ben and I went home by street-car, holding hands and smiling, leaving Brian to handle things on his own. We didn't speak really, except in glances. Sometimes that's all we need. 

It was early, yet, when we got in, and we turned restlessly to puttering - I in the garden, he on the computer. But eventually we converged on the bedroom, our bed. 

I sat down on my side, took off my socks, started on my shirt buttons, paused. I had to say it, get it out of my head, "They're really happy together." 

"And so are we," Ben answered me, tugging me around for a kiss. And what more was there to say than that? 

I was happy; I would be happier once Ben was undressed; Ben surely felt the same. 

_Polyamory is not for the faint of heart for external reasons, as well. Certainly, many people will think it wonderful that you have so much love in your life, but many more will just not understand. Cultural conditioning runs deep._

Sometimes this results in an interesting or useful side-effect - see: all the entries I've written concerning fetishes, the continued existence of law and order. But more often than not our conditioning ends up being harmful to ourselves or others. 

We all descended on Anna the following day - and she monopolized Shawna immediately, beckoning her into sitting in the sun on the bench beside her. Brian and Andi, who had apparently only stopped talking politics and activism long enough to eat brunch, took over the bottom step of the outside staircase. Ben joined them, so I fell into my usual habits and started to walk the perimeter of the courtyard, looking over the plantings and ridding them of unwelcome visitors when the need arose. It was all Jake's to look after, but he'd do the same for me. 

I was crouched down by a clump of ferns, poking a finger down into the dirt of their bed, when I heard the man in question, Jake Greenleaf, approaching. More to the point, I heard him and Matt, the former making a considered point every now and again and the latter chattering away. 

Jake asked a question just before they got close enough that I could really hear what they were saying, but I caught Matt's answering, "I tend bar, DJ on the side - but I miss having a place to have a garden. Haven't been able to get a place in those community things. They've got waiting lists." 

I turned and asked, smiling a welcome, "Do you have a balcony?" 

He nodded, "Sure." 

"Then you've got room for a container garden: some herbs, flowers, tomatoes - maybe some zucchini or peppers. All depends on what sort of light you get, what you want to get out of it." 

He grinned, "Window-boxes, huh? I bet I could swing that. It'd make Andi happy for sure, having vegetables we grew ourselves. Be better than the farmers' markets." 

"You won't be able to grow everything," Jake put in. 

"Well, I know that," and Matt's grin widened out into a broad, welcoming smile, taking the sting out of it, "we wouldn't stop going to the markets, anyway - we want people to keep growing organic and they won't if enough people don't buy the stuff they produce." 

"You're right about that - though it's hardly a danger around here. We surely like our organics." Just like we like all things gay and multicultural, Jake might have said, but didn't, letting it just hang there, acknowledged, but unsaid. 

Most other places in the country, we three would have been less welcome species, like the weeds I'd been hunting out amongst the ferns, but here the gay guy, the trans guy, and the bi-racial guy were not only tolerated, but welcomed. I didn't say any of this, either, just, `It's true.' And the conversation turned: to market-gardening, whether it was better to cut flowers or simply enjoy them in situ, eating locally and seasonally. 

_No healthy relationship is ever done, complete, never to need work again, but this is particularly true of polyamorous ones. If the question isn't `how do you sort out the holidays with three . . . four . . . five sets of in-laws (some of whom may not even know they're in-laws)?', then it just might be `would it be more or less complicated if we all lived together?' or possibly even `do we all need to attend every play party together?' - because, yes, kids, even polyamorous sex comes with logistics._

"Did you have a good journey?" 

"Yes, Mouse." Shawna sounded tolerantly amused. 

"And you called your father?" I didn't really need to ask, but did it anyway; she was an adult now, but I would never stop feeling parental. 

This drove her to fond exasperation, "Yes. And, yes, he said that he'd like it if we came out again sometime this summer." 

"Well, good - because Ben and I miss seeing you. And I promised Matt that I'd give him more tips on successful container gardening." 

"Ooh - I know what that means." 

"Fresh rosemary?" I didn't think he'd actually try growing pot, given Andi's feelings on the subject, but I teased with love and Shawna knew it. 

"Mouse!" 

_Lest you think it's all logistics, logistics, logistics, let me step back and tell you with certainty: it's not. It's about appreciating your partners and the life you have with them, the thing you've found that works for you. It's also - hopefully - about sharing the wonder of this with the world._

Brian didn't stick around long after Shawna went back to New York, but he swung back through town about a month after that, said he wanted to get a few things out of storage before he headed north again. We had him over for dinner. Ben cooked. And of course there was wine. 

I poured us all another glass, sipped, held it on my tongue long enough to appreciate all the subtleties of its flavor. Or imagine that I had done so, at any rate; I was more than a little tipsy. I swallowed my mouthful, smiled, looked over to where Brian was chasing a lone sprout around his plate with his fork. 

I looked away to find Ben looking at me, smiling, slightly flushed. 

Then Brian spoke, quietly, "They're good for her. She's good for them. They're her family, but she's still ours too, and they're ours, as well. I think . . . I think it's the best thing that's happened since Anna lived." 

I said, "Yes." And Ben smiled - and the evening flowed on. 

_The thing about polyamory is this: it's not for everyone, but it may be for more people than you'd think. A family can look like many different things, the `traditional' nuclear model included - all of them bound together by love. Why shouldn't this be true of romantic relationships? Why should `two people, `til-death-do-us-part' be the only way to go?_

Of course, you might think that being raised by a single father, an adopted uncle and his several partners, and an adopted grandmother has had the effect of making me particularly suited to this mode of thought. You might even be right. But what does that matter when the thought itself is simply true? After all, what is true of my uncle's marriage to another man is true of my bisexual polyamorous relationship: neither of them hurt your monogamous commitment to your opposite-sex partner. He is married. You are married. I might someday be married in the eyes of the law to one of my partners, though I cannot imagine that should that happen I would not still be committed to both of them. Perhaps they will marry each other instead. Or perhaps none of us will marry until all of us can be legally bound to each other. 

 


End file.
